Eye for an eye, toe for a toe

Three Quotes

All cities, towns, neighborhoods, families, and individuals determine narratives for themselves, and are conditioned by the myths they perpetually create and re-create for themselves.

-Allan McCullom from "Allen Ruppersberg- What One Loves About Life Are the Things That Fade"

Of course, it is strange to inhabit the earth no longer,

to no longer use skills one had barely time to acquire;

not to observe roses and other things that promised

so much in terms of a human future, no longer

to be what one was in infinitely anxious hands;

to even discard one's own name as easily as a child

abandons a broken toy.

-Rainer Rilke from "The First Elegy"

Write a story of a young man... who was hypocritical in his dealings with God and men gratuitously, out of the mere consciousness of his insignificance -- write how this youth squeezes the slave out of himself drop by drop, and how, waking up one fine morning, he feels that in his veins flows no longer the blood of a slave but that of a real man.

-Anton Chekhov describing himself to a fellow author

I saw you from across the room. I saw right through you.

John McCracken and Fred Sandback at David Zwirner

Many Funny People

Gratitude

Greens

Masks

Images:

1. James Dean by Alicia Gibson

2. An unidentified child's painting of a lamb

3. A Cabinet of Masks on view in "Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages" at the Metropolitan Museum

4. Body-painted person at Mixed Greens in Chelsea

5. Unidentified photo

In Front, Behind

Water

Photo: this is the color of my dreams

Joan Miro, Photo: this is the color of my dreams (detail)

on display at the Metropolitan Museum

Eight Clouds

Keren Cytter's "Les Ruissellements Du Diable" at X Initiative

Keren Cytter's "Les Ruissellements Du Diable" at X Initiative through September

Keren Cytter is quickly becoming one of my personal favorites. See a survey of her work, including "Les Ruissellements Du Diable" on the 2nd floor of X Initiative, 548 West 22nd Street, Chelsea.

Here's an interview with Cytter about this work.

Here's a Brooklyn Rail review of it.

Fifteen Downtowns